Fifteen year old girl who killed her newborn baby

Indeed so.

An update to this thread as another case has been reported:

A woman who killed her newborn baby by throwing him from a balcony has been spared jail so she can get help.

This woman was 34 years old, not a panicked teenager, and she carried on going into work as normal after killing her baby.

She has received a three-year community order.
Handing Barron a three-year community order, the judge said "compassion, support and rehabilitation" is often needed rather than punishment.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-66201431

The similarities in the cases and the disparity in sentencing are remarkable.

Iam64

Great post MerylStreep . The destruction of SureStart is something I will never forgive or forget

Indeed so - makes me furious. Our political system encourages dogma-driven short-term savings over long term planning and investment in people's lives.

I also come back to my point above - a people trafficker has also received a 12 year sentence for the deaths of 39 people.

They were a great initiative. And I the right places in town. And busy, and used.

Great post MerylStreep . The destruction of SureStart is something I will never forgive or forget

The Norway prison system proves that money goes a long way to educating prisoners so they don’t return.
It helps that Norway is as rich as cracuss.
But it proves the point about putting money into prisons.
Off the top of my head I can only think of 2 ways that any government has been pro-active in any department.
No1. They way those of us born at the end of the war were given every supplement going to keep us healthy.
No 2. Tony Blair’s Sure Start.
I’m sure others will remember more.

A people trafficker has just been sentenced to 12 years for the deaths of 39 people in a lorry in Essex.

We need:
- prisons that have proper rehab facilities and programmes.
- preventive measures to stop people finishing up there in the first place.
- decent working conditions for prison officers.
- good services for young people and children with vulnerabilities.
- family services that support good parenting.
- to tackle the drugs problem. So many people who finish up in prison have a drug problem.
- to live in a political system that does not encourage short term thinking and recognises the need for preventive services.

All of this requires the will and the right funding choices. and I doubt we will see that any time soon.

Margiknot

Perhaps the answer - if building new prisons- is to build supportive treatment and rehab included facilities suitable for different needs so that the vulnerable, learning disabled, or young do not have to mix with violent, hardened, drug peddling criminals.

I think we started down that route years ago but that all seems to have backtracked over the last few years.

Perhaps the answer - if building new prisons- is to build supportive treatment and rehab included facilities suitable for different needs so that the vulnerable, learning disabled, or young do not have to mix with violent, hardened, drug peddling criminals.

I absolutely do know that there are dedicated prison officers and governors - sadly we have seen few of them. The low point for me was when the prisoner's parents were told by staff to pay the drug debts .... where does it end? As long as the dealers know the bill will be paid, then they will go on doing it. And they know where the parents live, so they are under threat too. It is all a mess. It is a terrifying underworld.

My relative should not be in this situation in the first place - if proper care, support and education had been available during her childhood things could have been so different - but the help was not there for her special needs (autism and brain damage in utero).

Prison is no place for someone who is vulnerable and damaged - there needs to be some other custodial facilities with a rehab focus. Prisons are so underfunded and poorly staffed that they do not have a chance of taking on this role. They are just fire fighting every minute of the day.

My question is what PM will gain from prison - she will be exposed to threats and violence, to drug pushers and mentally disturbed residents. This will not help her to lead a better life, and indirectly will not help any of us.

No not upset, nauseated and angry that sex offenders walk amongst us

Lucky - I have two close friends who were governors, in well known prisons. Both dedicated to improving the prison experience for prisoners and staff. I’m back to complaining about a government that sees building more prisons as the answer.
One of my friends was governor of a prison holding male offenders. The went out to work every day. It was vanishingly rare for one not to return

Iam64

Callistemon, reading your link turned my stomach. I understand the comparison you’re making

I’m sitting on my fingers to stop myself introducing the dangerous peadophiles I was in contact with. Many of whom got NG findings because of the absence of ‘independent evidence’ to support the word of a traumatised 7 year old. Another nother thread?

I was asked not to make comparisons.

But this was on the local news and I was so shocked and struck by the similarity in sentencing that it struck me immediately.

I've heard some shocking cases over the years, some can never be forgotten. This was just dreadful.

Sorry if I upset anyone.

I agree Iam - prison is a grim place to work and the working conditions are awful, so therefore recruitment will be a problem. Truly dedicated, intelligent, sensitive, secure and well-educated people do not jump at the opportunity. They realise they will have crap dangerous conditions and run for the hills. So what are we left with?

Judges follow the rules and place people in prison, while at the same time prisons are in the control of the drug barons, lacking any rehabilitative element, and failing their inmates. The service is of course underfunded.

We have met some decent prison officers who are equally appalled by the situation and are doing their best; but have met more who frankly do not care a jot.

I could not work in a prison, surrounded by the mentally ill, poorly parented, poorly educated, drug-addicted population who are there. I hope I might resist the temptation to accept bribes to turn a blind eye to the drug trade - but who knows to what lengths one might go if presented with threats?

Callistemon, reading your link turned my stomach. I understand the comparison you’re making

I’m sitting on my fingers to stop myself introducing the dangerous peadophiles I was in contact with. Many of whom got NG findings because of the absence of ‘independent evidence’ to support the word of a traumatised 7 year old. Another nother thread?

Luckygirl - I understand your anger and frustration. However, prison officers, like police officers, reflect the society they serve. Basic grade officers are often drawn from a similar cohort as the prisoners. It’s grim work in often dreadful conditions. Believe me I’m not dismissing your concerns. Maybe it’s ‘another ‘ thread

And how do you propose to stop drugs getting into prisons? We could ban visitors and outdoor spaces and board up the windows to stop them coming in by drone I suppose. Any other ideas?

Well, we could sack the prison officers that are taking backhanders to turn a blind eye for a start.

The judge applied the sentencing guidelines set by the government. It doesn’t mean that the sentencing guidelines are universally accepted. Neither are they set in stone.

Judges have the discretion to depart from sentencing guidelines if they think it would be in the interest of justice to do so, given all the circumstances of a particular case.” from the Sentencing Council.

Former probation watchdog Professor Morgan has slammed her jailing in a letter to The Guardian as mentioned previously by a poster.

He wrote: “The jailing of Paris Mayo should bring us up short.

“What on earth are we doing when current penal policy suggests that this is an appropriate sentence for a child offender who killed her newborn child but who, in the judge’s words, was “vulnerable” and “ill-supported at home”?

“What purpose does such a lengthy minimum sentence serve?”

She was sentenced to 12 years not 14. If you understand what sentencing guidelines and adjustments for aggravating and mitigating factors mean you will understand that you can’t compare sentences given for different offences, and especially not on the basis of newspaper reports.

Sentenced to 14 years as an adult aged 56 for raping a baby (more than once) and being in possession of indecent images of children.

www.wiltshire999s.co.uk/prison-swindon-man-filmed-assaulting-baby

Yes she would because she had to be sentenced on the basis of the age she was when she murdered her baby. She was not sentenced as a 19 year old.

So should your relative not have been imprisoned but left in the community to commit another serious crime?

And how do you propose to stop drugs getting into prisons? We could ban visitors and outdoor spaces and board up the windows to stop them coming in by drone I suppose. Any other ideas?

Germanshepherdsmum

So do you suggest we don’t imprison people convicted of murder (which is mandatory) or ‘serious drug-related crime’?

No - I am suggesting that:
- we need to ask what a prison sentence is for.
- we need prisons that are fit for purpose.
- we need services in the community that help people not to get to the situation where they offend.
- we need to sort the physically and mentally damaged from the criminal. Prisons are full of illiterate and mentally ill people.
- we need to get drugs out of prison.
- we need to restart the services for families with problems.
- we need to have preventative services in place.

Above all else we need to know what the purpose of this young woman's sentence is. She committed the offence as a child, but it took years to get to court. Would she have got 12 years if she had still been a child when it came to court?

Our public services not are!

I sincerely hope that she doesn't go to Eastwood Park prison which would be the nearest to her home. It has an appalling reputation and clearly does little to help rehabilitate the women held there. Just a snippet from the inspection report (see below), taken from the BBC. Yet another example of how are public services are letting down vulnerable people in our society.
"The levels of distress we observed were appalling. No prisoner should be held in such terrible conditions."

Mr Taylor said he was "deeply concerned" about the welfare of the "dedicated and courageous" staff on unit 4, saying they "were not adequately trained or qualified" to look after the women in their care.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-64498520

I have no doubt the judge followed the correct guidelines. That is their job

The forensic psychiatrists disagreed in their expert opinions.
The judge gave the jury the option of murder or infanticide
The jury were not unanimous in their decision.

Now the former Chief Inspector of Probation and ex-Youth Justice Board chairman, professor Rod Morgan, has questioned the lengthy prison sentence, as reported in The Forest Review this week.

He has written a letter to The Guardian about this troubling case.